The Road To You
by MarluxiaSutcliff116
Summary: A really-not-original story where Jean is a normal guy...until he falls asleep and essentially has dreams of the life of one of his parallel selves. He thinks he's just crazy, that there is absolutely no foundation for his nighttime life...until Marco shows up. /wow thatsabad summarysorry/


**The Road To You**

* * *

Jean remembered a lot of things, probably more than he should. Some of the things he remembered, while it was true that he probably shouldn't remember them, were for the most part ordinary.

He remembers all the way back when he was only four years old, the kind of blocks he played with on his first day of pre-school, or the candies his great-grandpapa would hide in his pocket for Jean to retrieve. He remembers when he was six years old and clambered up onto his mother's dresser and started to play with her nail polish, resulting in an ungodly mess of color.

He remembered his dreams too. Now, he knew that dreams were odd things, and that a person's subconscious is quite the fickle thing, but he didn't think _anyone_ dreamt about what he did.

It was strange, he'd been having these dreams since before he could remember, one every night, and they were in _no way _ordinary. Every dream was like an entire day in someone else's life, in a world where humans were all but extinct, and the last of them lived inside three walls, being protected by the…_monsters _lurking outside.

It was a world of few choices, and his choice, for he _knew_ with _absolute_ certainty that the person whose life he was living was his own, had been to join the military. And oh, the horrors that awaited him.

Up until about five years ago, the dreams had been, at their worst, mild, because he knew he would always wake up and it would be over and everything would be alright. They were normal, boring even, but then something began happening in his little dream world that shook his waking world to the core.

Despite being just dreams, they were so vivid and detailed, so wondrously portrayed, that Jean often woke up confused as to what was real. So, when one of the walls of his dreams was suddenly kicked in by the biggest, scariest, _creature_ Jean had ever seen, in his dreams or otherwise, Jean had never felt a fear quite as intense as when he woke up.

He had been all of ten years old at the time, and that would be enough to scare any child witless, but it only got worse from there. But when he was twelve, he dreamt that he joined the military, and over about the next two years the dreams left him feeling tired and somewhat anxious, but rarely worse than that.

After all, just about every day held some new adventure for Jean and the rest of the 104th Trainee Squad.

* * *

Jean sighed a bit, walking past a playground to his left, skirting around children and people walking their dogs, wishing the chilly Chicago air was just a bit warmer.

Well, it wasn't really Chicago, Jean just said that because everybody knows where Chicago is and nobody wants to waste their time figuring out wherever the hell Lansing is.

Jean looked over at one of the kids running past him. He had brown hair and vibrant green eyes, and he had a small blond's hand in his own as they made for the swings. Jean smiled. _'Kinda looks like Eren. Armin too, if she was a boy.'_

Jean's smile vanished almost instantly to be replaced by an exasperated grimace. He was really trying not to do that. It wouldn't do well to mix the dreaming world with the waking. But he couldn't help it. He was sixteen already, and his nights had been going from bad to worse for awhile, and he couldn't help but long for how things used to be.

Eren's loud mouth with Armin's placating tone being talked over, or Mikasa's intimidating presence from behind her red scarf. Sasha's munch-munching and Connie's boisterous laughter, just Reiner's big-brother atmosphere, Bertholdt's quiet shyness, or even Annie's cold glances. Heck, he would even settle for a dagger-sharp glare from Ymir if it meant he could get a smile from Christa.

But he knew it could never be, and a low sigh escaped him when he thought of the one he missed the most. It was so unreal, the way he died.

Now, Jean wasn't one to get absolutely over-the-top emotional at the turn of a leaf, but the nights leading up to _that_ particular night had been downright horrific, and he never could have guessed what…_who_…waited for him when he walked down that particular street of Trost.

Waking up from _that _had left Jean in a worse state than a train wreck. It didn't help that his mother was already thinking of taking him to a doctor, but waking up to her son screaming and crying at four in the morning was almost a deal breaker.

He had somehow managed to talk his way out of it, but that didn't stop the dreams from coming. He never wanted to be anywhere near a bonfire ever again, he detested belts of any kind, and he _refused_ to touch any knife with a blade longer than his hand.

And if he had been antisocial before, he might as well not even have existed now. The only thing he was able to focus on was not going completely and utterly insane. That, and thinking about _him_.

With his bright eyes and immeasurably beautiful smile and endearing freckles. Always so cheerful, so supportive, so loving…so… "_Marco_."

Jean had only looked up the second the stranger was about to pass, but what he saw made his eyes widen and his feet halt.

Their eyes met, and for a full sixty seconds after his heated whisper, they stared at one another, thunderstruck.

Those wide, beautiful brown eyes were unmistakable, familiar freckles dotting the cheeks below them. The same ebony hair, the tilt of his nose, the shape of his lips. It was another few seconds before he breathed out. "_Jean_."

_His voice_. It was _his voice_.

Jean realized he had forgotten to breathe, and when he resumed the action once more he became aware of the tears that were blinding him. Or maybe that was the sudden smile that split Marco's face and lit up the whole neighborhood.

All at once he threw his arms around Jean and held him tightly to his chest, and he probably would have swung Jean around in a circle if Jean hadn't pounced on him as well and almost made him loose his balance.

"Holy cow! Jean!? Is that really you? I can't believe it! Say something! Say something!"

Jean shook him by the shoulders a little. "Oh my God you still don't swear! It _is_ you!"

"It is _you_!"

They both paused in their tirades and just stared at each other again, as many passerby were doing as well.

"But…how…?" Jean tilted his head. "You were…a dream. Well, I _thought _it was a dream…"

Marco suddenly pulled away, much to Jean's dissatisfaction, but he took Jean's hand and started leading him down the street. "I thought they were dreams too. But…they seemed too real, and somewhere along the line I started thinking that it might have been a past life of mine or something, as weird as that may sound."

At Jean's questioning glance he realized he hadn't clarified what he was doing and did as such. "Ah, my house is right around here, so we can talk in the back yard instead of in front of the entire park."

"You live around here!?"

Marco nodded, eyes bright. "Yeah, a couple blocks down this street!"

"No motherf-" A disapproving pout from Marco. "Freaking way! I live literally three blocks from this park."

Marco's face lit up with a smile so happy that Jean at last felt the corners of his mouth begin to lift, and soon they were grinning like absolute idiots at one another. It took them a minute to realize that they were already near Marco's house. As excited as they were, they almost passed it.

They were barely out of the driveway and into the back yard before Jean jumped into Marco's open arms.

Marco had grown, and stood a couple inches above Jean. But Jean found it _very_ hard to protest when he felt Marco bury his face in his short, sandy hair and hold him tighter.

"This is unreal." Came the whisper from above him. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Marco's voice held quiet emotion, and Jean pressed his cheek against Marco's throat and tugged him ever-closer. "You're one to talk." Jean almost choked on his words. "Do you still have the dreams though? Even after…" Jean stopped short, knowing he didn't need to finish and not planning on doing so.

Marco shook his head. "My dreams stopped about a year ago…"

Silence prevailed, broken only by the soft birdsong coming from the tree hanging above them. Jean very reluctantly loosened his left arm from its place around Marco's waist, but brought it up to gently graze his fingers over Marco's right cheek.

Marco's eyes narrowed slightly in a smile, and Jean cupped the whole side of his face in his hand, feeling the tears that had blurred his vision so badly flow freely across his cheeks. Jean let his hand wander down Marco's neck to gently caress down his shoulder and arm until he fitted their hands together.

Jean sniffed and bowed his head, then felt a light pressure to the crown of his head and heard a soft whisper. "I never told you…" Jean felt Marco rest their foreheads together, his eyes still downcast. "How much I…"

"No! _I_ was too much of a _coward_, so I never-!" Jean bit his lip to try and stop his tears, to no avail. "I never told you how much…I loved you…"

Marco sniffed above him and Jean felt a slight dampness against his skin. "Do you still?" Marco's voice was barely above a whisper.

At that, Jean wrapped his arms around Marco's back and brought his right arm up until he could feel it at the back of Marco's neck. He pulled Marco's face down until he was level with his own, his amber gaze unrelenting as he looked directly into Marco's eyes. For a moment, Marco thought he was angry, but then Jean's eyes became unimaginably soft and his lips turned up in the most beautiful smile Marco had ever seen.

"I'd like to see the day when I stopped, Bodt."

Marco's smile was like the sun as he wrapped his arms around Jean, holding him as close as he could get. He brought their faces so close their noses brushed.

"Oh Jean, I love you. I loved you for so long, but I was scared to say anything because I didn't want you to hate me! I'm sor-"

Jean silenced him by pressing their lips together, just briefly, but it got his message across. When he pulled away he brought his lips to Marco's cheek instead.

"Marco, I could never, _ever _hate you, no matter what. Trust me. I love you too much."

Jean placed kisses all over Marco's face and cheeks, and Marco closed his eyes with a happy sigh, his arms tightening slightly more to lovingly cradle Jean's body against his own.

When Jean took a moment to rest his face against his shoulder, Marco looked down at him and smiled back when he saw Jean smiling up at him.

Jean moved to place a kiss to his lips, sighing afterwards in a content manner, their foreheads touching. "I don't want to let go of you ever again."

Marco smiled, closing his eyes and nuzzling him a little. "Good. I don't want you to."

Jean just smiled and brought their lips together again.

* * *

Ever since then, Jean's life began to get better, little by little. From that day forward, Jean and Marco rarely left each other's sides.

They attended different high schools, but they ended up going away to college together, where many pleasant surprises waited for them.

It was in college that they met all of their friends. The first day Jean caught sight of Eren, Mikasa and Armin it was almost the Marco incident all over again, for the both of them, until Marco himself appeared and calmed the situation with a sunny grin.

Jean found he still didn't get along with Eren on many things, but he couldn't bring himself to hate him the way he 'used to'.

As much could be said for Annie, Bertholdt and Reiner. Annie was actually a very kind person once you got to know her, and Bertholdt was no longer the nervous sweater everyone was used to, but had found his own little niche to preoccupy in the study of botany.

And Reiner, while he hadn't changed much in terms of appearance or personality, was at last the real big brother figure they had all wished for ever since they found out his true intentions. When it all boiled down to it, he really was just a big-hearted person who would do anything to see his friends smile.

Connie and Sasha were, predictably, two peas in a pod, and exactly as everyone remembered them: goofy and lovable.

Ymir was still scary and Christa was still an angel, but _no one _was prepared for the shock they got when they walked into their Biology and Psychology classes and came face-to-face with Hanji and Levi, respectively.

But it was ideal, at least, compared to the world they walked after they drifted off.

And even as the years passed, Jean only got closer and closer to Marco, as may have been predicted.

Another thing that could have been foreseen as time passed, was the inevitability that, one by one, everyone's dreams stopped. Jean was one of the last, and more and more he found himself sneaking into Marco's single-person dorm and crawling into bed with him.

Marco did not once protest, or even ask why, he simply pulled Jean's back into his chest and kissed the back of his neck, whispering that he loved him and that he could stay as long as he wanted.

But not once did Jean ever leave the warmth and safety of his arms, and when the morning after his last dream finally came, he had never been so grateful to have Marco by his side.

And it was there that he wanted his freckled love to stay, so it wasn't long after they graduated college that Jean proposed and the two were married.

The dreams still haunted both of them, but despite all that happened, despite all of the anger, the fear, and the sadness, at the end of the day, or the beginning rather, Jean knew that they were merely dreams, and they had happened in another place, another time.

This time was his, and there was nothing he would change, nothing he would undo.

For everything, every tiny thing he had ever done, had led him to this moment, to his friends, to his love… To his Marco.

* * *

_**A/N**_

_**SOOOOOO. I just wanna say that I really love this *happy sobs* AUGH I had to keep pausing tho, cause I kept hitting myself in the feels! but ANYWAY. Yeah, I saw THIS on Tumblr :**_

post/67352368258/miyajimamizy-happy-song-makes-me-happy-but

_**And omfg my feels just went on a fckin' TRIP. And THE SONG fit so well. Just… *places hand over heart* A moment of silence in respect for the freaking AMAZING artist. But really, This was a lot of fun to write, and I actually wanted to change their names but my lazy side was like 'bitch plz' so yeah that didn't happen XD might've been really confusing now that I think about it tho . So yeah, Enjoi my lovelies :3**_

_**Characters © Isayama Hajime**_

_**Story © MarluxiaSutcliff116**_


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